Why Newscoop was first choice for accessibly designed, Kobinet-Nachrichten
The recent relaunch of kobinet-nachrichten.org marks Sourcefabric's first successful project focused on the issue of online accessibility. From the very clear, easy to read and contrast-rich design by Ana Nedic to Michael Scharnagl's W3C validated HTML/CSS, the Kobinet relaunch showcases the ability to run a website with Newscoop while fulfilling all the requirements of the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines.
Newscoop offers open source solutions with WCAG 2 standards
It was actually Kobinet's head of IT Hubertus Thomasius, who got in touch with Sourcefabric while searching for a new CMS. Says Hubertus, 'We chose Newscoop because it had all our required features, and many more, already built-in. He told us they decided on using Newscoop 'because it offers all the advantages of open source, while at the same time being carefully coded, and also allows us to easily publish in accordance with the WCAG 2 standards.'
Responsive design means accessible design
On top of that, Newscoop themes are responsively designed. This feature offered the Kobinet team a big advantage as their audience often uses tablets and mobile phones for their built-in voice functions. 'Newscoop lends itself particularly well for developing responsive CSS and this adds to the attractiveness of the CMS for developers looking to build accessible websites.'
Being one of Germany's biggest news site for and about people with physical and mental disabilities, Kobinet was the perfect partner to team up with and bring the issue of accessibility to Newscoop. Our team was better able to understand these issues through extensive testing with members from Kobinet's editorial board and a comprehensive workshop we organized. Various users with different disabilities also helped Sourcefabric gain an insight into specific needs and tools used to create an accessible experience for every Kobinet reader.
Workshopping Newscoop with Kobinet-Nachrichten and Sourcefabric
New awareness leads design and development
The successful launch of Kobinet can of course be nothing but a starting point for making Sourcefabric's software and websites based on Newscoop more accessible. A fully accessible theme based on the knowledge from working with Kobinet is an obvious next step, as is the big and long term task to make our software backend more accessible for everyone.